The present invention relates generally to wireless local area networks (WLANs) and more specifically to methods for automatically and securely configuring access points, wireless switches and other hardware to be coupled to the network.
802.11 Access Points (APs) provide 802.11 clients secure, wireless access to a wireless local area network (WLAN). In an enterprise WLAN, 802.11 clients can roam transparently between consistently configured APs. Currently, APs must be configured with operational parameter values that are a) common for all APs in a WLAN, b) Access Point (AP) specific, and/or c) location specific. AP specific parameters may include a secret RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) key or authentication password. Location specific parameters may include client subnet bindings or the Internet Protocol (IP) address of a local AP manager.
The number of APs in an enterprise campus network can be very large (e.g., hundreds or thousands); therefore, manually configuring each AP is often tedious, error prone, and labor intensive. In a common scenario, a large number of unconfigured 802.11 APs are delivered to a customer site, where a third-party installation contractor installs the APs, often in inaccessible areas. The installation contractor is ordinarily neither qualified nor authorized to configure the APs. Since APs are configured with location specific information, an authorized IT manager cannot pre-configure an AP until the AP's location is determined.